The present invention is directed toward a heat reclamation flue pipe and more particularly to a new type of flue pipe which is directly interchangeable with standard flue pipe sections presently in use today but which reclaims a portion of the heat from the hot flue gases and smoke which otherwise would be lost through the chimney and up into the atmosphere. The heat reclaiming flue pipe of the present invention is simple and inexpensive so that any number of them may be used in a given installation so that the desired amount of heat may be reclaimed for heating the room in which the flue is located.
As is well-known in the art, furnaces and stoves for heating buildings by means of fuel such as gas, oil, wood, coal or the like are only moderately efficient since a large amount of the heat energy available from the combustion of the fuel is wasted in the hot gases which pass through the flue system and up the chimney. Thus, it has been found in many installations that the temperature in the smoke or flue pipe leading out of the furnace and to the chimney is as great as about 750.degree. Fahrenheit indicating that considerable waste heat is present in the flue gases.
Numerous devices have been proposed for extracting some of the wasted heat from the flue pipe to directly or indirectly complement the usual heating effort of the heating system and to thus attempt to increase the total heating efficiency of the system. These prior devices, however, all suffer from substantially the same deficiencies. All prior devices known to Applicant are relatively complex arrangements which can only be added to the existing flue system by making various modifications thereto. This makes these prior devices relatively expensive and difficult to install particularly when electrical power must be provided for the blowers which are needed in these prior devices. Because of the relatively high cost of prior art heat reclaiming devices, it is impractical to utilize more than one such device in any flue system and accordingly, only a limited amount of heat can be reclaimed from the flue pipe system.